Cheating Pastor Had Mistress Sitting Next to Him at Wife’s Memorial Service After Zion National Park Murder

Nearly twenty years after Bernadette Vander Meer fell more than 1,200 feet to her death from Angels Landing in Zion National Park, her husband David was arrested and charged with pushing her off that cliff. What had long been treated as a tragic accident during the couple’s tenth-anniversary hike was suddenly ruled a murder. David, a former youth pastor from Las Vegas, was taken into custody in June 2026. Just days later he was found with self-inflicted wounds in his jail cell and died the following day.

Bernadette was only 29 when she died on that August day in 2006. Friends and family packed a memorial service for her less than a week later, with more than 600 people coming to say goodbye. Among them was Kathy Page, a former youth leader at their church who had known Bernadette since she was a young teenager.

Page had met Bernadette for lunch about a month before the fatal trip. During that conversation she told her friend she suspected David was having an affair. Bernadette seemed to be holding something back, but Page didn’t push for details. What she saw at the memorial service stunned her. The same woman she believed was David’s mistress was sitting right near him on the same bench or just behind him. Page couldn’t believe it.

“I can’t remember the connection, the bridge from her saying that David was having an affair to me learning the person’s name and how did I know that was her sitting next to him,” Page later recalled. “But I knew who it was.”

Page is married to a police officer, so her instincts immediately went to the spouse. Still, she stayed quiet that day. She didn’t want to say something she might regret, and part of her wondered if David was simply hurting and needed support. What she noticed most, though, was how little anguish he showed while everyone around him sobbed. “I didn’t see the anguish,” she said. “I was in anguish at this funeral. We were sobbing. I didn’t see that with him.”

Page spoke briefly with David before leaving the service. She saw him only once more in the years that followed, when he visited her church. Then one day in June 2026 the news broke that U.S. Marshals had arrested him in Las Vegas. He faced charges of murder and insurance fraud in Bernadette’s death. For Page it felt like justice for her old friend Bernie.

David was booked into the Clark County Detention Center but was soon discovered with self-inflicted wounds. He died the next day. Page admitted it was difficult to hear about his death so soon after the arrest, yet she also felt a measure of relief. “He’s not around to hurt anybody else anymore,” she said. “End of story. It can be all put to rest. I mean, it’s as close to a closure as you can get.”

She added that she thinks Bernadette would have forgiven him in the end, because that was simply the kind of person she was.